Posts Tagged ‘Ultimate Doom’

John Romero celebrated Doom’s 21st birthday last week by sharing a load of neat-o unseen art and photographs from his personal archive, but in my gushing I missed a big Doom birthday tradition. For 11 years now, the Doomworld community have marked the day with the Cacowards, a celebration of the Doom mapping and modding community’s best from the past year. They’re still going strong! If you’re out of touch with recent Doom developments but fancy playing something new, the 2014 Cacowards winners are a fine place to start.

“HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY, DOOM!” John Romero tweeted yesterday. “In honor of this legal drinking age birthday, I’m about to release some never-before-seen DOOM game art!”

I know what you’re thinking – “21 years old! The US drinking age is barbaric.” Then you pause and realise “Wait, never-before-seen Doom art? Ooh!” And yes, it is splendid. Since then, the id co-founder has shared treasures including scans of the clay models id turned into monster sprites, and all sorts of abilities, textures, and gore that never made it into Doom. It’s a joyous Doomdump.

Are you a German teenager? Then do we have some good news for you! After a short seventeen year-long wait, you are now legally allowed to buy a copy of Doom. And, indeed, Doom can now be stocked in normal shops, not just ones ominously deemed ‘adults-only’ – which was basically putting the game right up there with porn.

As of yesterday, Germany’s Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (Bundesprufstelle) has removed Doom – and Doom II – from its list of ‘controlled’ games, following an appeal by id’s owners Bethesda. Their reasoning? Because the Bundesprufstelle thinks Doom is ‘now only of artistic and scientific interest and will not appeal to youngsters’, according to the BBC.